Raiders Have Found Special Man for the Job / Rusty Tillman brings new intensity

Ira Miller, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 4:00 am, Friday, February 9, 1996

Rusty Tillman, the Raiders' new special-teams coach, hates labels -- even the one some people tagged him with over the years, that he was the best special-teams coach there ever was in the NFL.

Tillman used to worry privately that labels like that kept him from advancing. Now he turns it around. He wants people -- and players -- to understand that what he does with the kicking teams is no different from what offensive and defensive coordinators do in their part of the game.

"I know what I'm doing," he says. "I do it with some enthusiasm and get other people to do it with some enthusiasm. I guess that's about it."

For some reason, people tend to look at special-teams coaches differently than they look at other coaches, as though special-teams coaches are somehow less important.

In fact, particularly now, they actually may be more important in the NFL because the salary cap/free-agency combination has leveled competition and robbed teams of the depth that used to make up their special teams.

"It stems basically from the attitude of people in general about football. There's not a deep abiding interest (in special teams)," said Fred vonAppen, a former 49ers special-teams coach who's now head coach at the University of Hawaii.

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"Kicking is kind of an interlude between offense and defense, and people don't want it screwed up, and they'd like to see big, spectacular plays in it. But other than that, the interest isn't there -- and it kind of happens that way to some degree with coaches," von Appen added.

That's the attitude that bothers Tillman.

"Exactly what I sell is that it is important," he said. "You've got to change it in the player's mind."

Once, Tillman was one of those special- teams stars. In fact, he was one of the league's first ones, playing for George Allen's Washington Redskins teams in the '70s. Allen generally is credited as the first head coach to really emphasize special teams, and Tillman says "most of the important stuff" he teaches dates from Allen.

"He felt he could have played middle linebacker for George," said former team-

mate Joe Theismann, "but instead of pouting, what he did is he made the best of a situation that wasn't necessarily one he would have desired, and became really great at it."

Tillman, who'll turn 50 later this month, has spent most of his coaching career with the Seattle Seahawks, handling special teams for 13 years. He was the Seahawks' defensive coordinator for three years, and last season, he was defensive coordinator at Tampa Bay.

As a special-teams coach, Tillman was known as a motivator. Chuck Knox, the Seahawks' head coach during most of the '80s, raves about Tillman's intensity, even in practice, but also appreciated his strategies. Knox still talks about a fake field goal Tillman prepared that helped upset the Raiders, who went on to win the Super Bowl, in 1983.

"Rusty has worked his rear end off to gain respect around the league," Theismann said. "It wasn't because he had a lot of talented players and all of a sudden he just put a scheme together and they made it happen. He has made things happen."

Dave Wyman, a former Stanford linebacker who played for Tillman at Seattle and now is with Denver, said Tillman used to hand out $100 cash rewards for big special-teams plays.

"It was called 'Dash for cash,' " Wyman said. "It wasn't a lot of money. That's the interesting dynamic of it, I thought. Here are guys making six figures. It wasn't so much the money, it was that he would call guys up in front of the room and say this guy got a great knockout hit or a tackle. He'd have this wad of cash, and people would walk up there in front of the whole team. It's more the pride factor."

Wyman, who's clear to point out he likes Tillman, described his former coach as "a wild man," saying, "I've seen him go nuts and challenge players physically and stuff like that."

"My rookie year, I remember him screaming and yelling, telling me that his grandmother could cover kickoffs better than I could," Wyman said. "When you're that young, most guys are usually sensitive. Once you get in the league for a few years, that kind of stuff just rolls off you. I remember being pretty hurt by it, but that's what he wanted to do. It made me think about it next time, but I never really got to be much of a good special-teams player."

Most players who have been around Tillman speak highly of him. Theismann calls him the "epitome" of a players coach, because, "He understands the mentality of the athlete . . . how to get guys to perform to an optimum level (and) . . . how to treat players."

It came from experience. Tillman never forgot how lousy he felt when the Redskins cut him as a player after eight years. He got the word from a teammate.

"I didn't think it was done with much dignity," Tillman says.

Because of that, in Seattle, Tillman volunteered to be the guy at training camp who told players they were being released.

A lot of people around the NFL expect Tillman to be a head coach somewhere in the not-too distant future. If you think special-teams coaches don't grow up to be head coaches, think again. The head coaches of the last six AFC champions all are former NFL special- teams coaches: Marv Levy (Buffalo), Bobby Ross (San Diego) and Bill Cowher (Pittsburgh). Mike Ditka and Dick Vermeil were special- teams coaches before they were head coaches.

Knox says the only reason Tillman hasn't gotten a head-coaching job yet is that he hasn't been with a winning team. Tillman agrees.

"Being a defensive coordinator didn't do much for me, did it?" Tillman said.

It didn't, even though Tillman clearly did a good job. The Bucs were the 12th-toughest team to score against in the NFL last season, even though their four division rivals all ranked among the league's eight highest scoring teams. Now he'll get a chance to embellish his reputation.

Last season, the Raiders had one of the worst starting field position records in the league. After kickoffs, their opponents started drives on average at the 30.4-yard line, sixth worst in the NFL. And the Raiders started their own drives on average at the 26.9-yard line, eighth worst in the league.

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